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TFTW Archive 2024 December


Shabbat Vayetzé


6 December 2024

Dear Members and Friends,

The little black cat is back lodging with me. We have re-established our relationship, with me as the main provider of food and many strokes, she as an endless source of wonder and conversation. Night times are when she is most chatty, although it is more than often difficult to understand what she is saying. Food? Always. Caresses? Almost always when she pushes her little head against my knuckles.

My son, her true owner finally brought round her plaything. Two toy mice, each one attached to the two ends of a long red rope tied to a green ribbon. Dangling one end in front of her, she is simply not interested. But hide one under a rug and tug at the rope and she will attempt to lift the end of the rug with her paw and claws and capture the mouse, holding it for a few moments between her paws. Then her interest wanes.

It took me a while to work out why she was more interested in the act of searching for the mouse than finding it. The game reminded me of a passage in our Siddur – an extract from an unpublished sermon, delivered on Yom Kippur 1965 by a previous LJS Rabbi, Dr David Goldstein (zichrono livrachah).

The sermon speaks about the searching and finding of God. Rabbi Goldstein compares two kinds of searching: the searching for something that is lost, such as a precious stone, which is separate in time from the act of finding.  ‘We can,’ he says, ‘describe the very point at which the searching ended, and the finding began.’ But, he continues, there is another kind of searching:

‘It may be likened to listening to a piece of music. Now it is true that the piece of music will have a final climax and resolution, and that will be our finding. But that climax, unlike the precious stone, is completely worthless without the musical moments that have preceded it. In fact we have begun to discover that climax as soon as we have heard the first note of the music, and the whole of the listening process not only leads up to the discovery, but is the discovery of the climax’ (Siddur Lev Chadash, page 240).

For the little black cat, it is her animated search that constitutes the finding of her toy mouse, for the discovery does not result in any triumphant victory.  In searching for God, says Rabbi Goldstein, ‘those who feel that the search for God must necessarily end in some kind of experience which will in effect be the finding, are generally disappointed.’

There are those who may feel alienated from this language that speaks of the search for God. After all, what does it mean to search for God? Or, for that matter, that God searches for us, as S/He did in the Garden of Eden, calling out to the first human beings Ayekkah – ‘Where are you?’ (Genesis 3:9)

And there are those for whom the search for God may be rooted in their faith, in their daily lives, their desire to be their best possible selves. Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose book God in Search of Man encapsulates God’s pursuit of humanity, God’s patience, waiting for us to respond to a call in some way, sees that call to Adam and Eve ‘Where are you?’ as a call that goes out again and again.

‘Faith comes out of awe, out of an awareness that we are exposed to [God’s] presence, out of anxiety to answer the challenge of God, out of an awareness of our being called upon. Religion consists of God’s question and [humanity’s] answer… Unless God asks the question, all our inquiries are in vain’ (God in Search of Man, page 137).

Prayer, ritual, community, ethics – are these our responses to the question ‘Where are you?’ I watch the little black cat, her small body seated on a narrow window sill, her gaze intent on something outside. Does she know that she cannot reach the bird, the mouse, the people walking in the street? That she cannot rub her neck against the rough bark of a tree? Does she feel disappointed that she cannot explore that world in its material sense? I don’t know, but I learn from the way she is completely absorbed in the present, from her stillness in the moment, her silence and the observations that are apparent to her but hidden to my limited gaze.

Shabbat Shalom,
Alexandra Wright
 
The first night of Chanukkah is on Wednesday 25th December.  Can you offer your house on one of the eight days to host a candle lighting for members living in your area?  Would you like to attend a candle lighting in someone’s home?  Please click here and we will try to match you up. 


Reflections on The March Against Antisemitism

13 December 2024

Dear Members and Friends,

On December 8th, thousands marched through central London against antisemitism from the Royal Courts of Justice to Westminster under the banner ‘Act against hate before it’s too late’ (read about the event here).

 



I deeply understand and feel the need to take a stand against antisemitism; however, I think that the way it was conducted has the potential to set us back and make the situation worse rather than better.
 
Let me explain. The rise of antisemitism in the UK is undeniable and should be taken very seriously. According to a recent CST report, university-related antisemitic incidents increased by 117% from the 150 incidents recorded in 2020-2022. Other numbers on the CST website are similarly alarming. It follows, therefore, that a march against antisemitism was the right thing to organise. I hope it will bring this issue further into the public eye and people will take its message very seriously.
 
However, I think the organisers of the march made a mistake in allowing Israeli flags to be present at the event. The Jewish community have spent decades trying to fight the antisemitic trope that all diaspora Jews should be held responsible for the actions of Israel.
 
For example, On 11 January 2015, the BBC's Tim Willcox interrupted the daughter of a Holocaust survivor discussing antisemitism in France by saying: "Many critics, though, of Israel's policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well" (read more about it here). After widespread criticism from the Jewish community for appearing to assume responsibility for Israel's actions to all Jews as a whole and to justify the antisemitic massacre, Willcox apologised.
 
According to Dr Jonathan Boyd’s report produced by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research on 5 October 2024, nearly four in five British Jews say that they often feel that they are being held responsible by non-Jews for the actions of Israel’s government (read the full report here). Irrespective of their personal opinions, British Jews have no control over the decisions or actions of the Israeli government. Therefore, this report is a striking example of deep misunderstanding and antisemitic tropes within British society. Israel and British Jewry is not the same. Of course, some British Jews have family, friends and business connections in Israel, but it does not make British Jews responsible for Israeli actions.
 
There is nothing wrong in organising a demonstration to support Israel. I am sure many people, including LJS members, would attend such an event. Equally, it is important and right to organise a march to raise awareness about the growing number of anti-Jewish hate crimes in our country. But to conflate these two is dangerous. It sends the wrong message and could be misconstrued as suggesting that British Jews perceive any criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitism.
 
There are many British Jews who hold deeply critical positions with regard to the Israeli government. There are also British Jews who identify as anti-Zionist, and yet they too can be a victim of antisemitism. Waving Israeli flags at the march against antisemitism sends a wrong message and excludes a large number of British Jews. It also makes it harder for non-Jewish allies to stand alongside us without feeling they are making a one-sided statement about the current conflict. Having such a march was very important and timely, but Israeli flags should not have been allowed there.
 
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Igor


Shabbat Vayeshev

20 December 2024

Dear Members and Friends,

It seems strange that the Rabbis had to ask the question: Mai Chanukkah – ‘What is Chanukkah?’  Even stranger that there is no talmudic tractate dedicated to our eight-day festival that begins on Wednesday night 25 December. Didn’t the Rabbis know what this festival commemorated?

Of all our festivals, Chanukkah is the most historical, its origins not in the distant past of our mythic-history, but in a period after Alexander the Great’s armies had conquered the Near East, including Israel.

After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided, and Israel came under the control of the Seleucid dynasty and the Greek-Syrian emperor Antiochus Epiphanes. Is it not strange – again – after more than two thousand years, that our eyes are turned towards this region of the world with the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s merciless regime? In cities throughout Syria, women and men are celebrating their liberation after five decades of a brutal dictatorship, incarceration, torture, arbitrary killings and atrocities against Syria’s own people.

The Book of Maccabees (not a biblical book) records the prohibition of Jewish rituals such as Shabbat and circumcision by the Seleucid regime, their replacement with the worship of Greek gods and the sacrifice of pigs, and the ruthless murder of families who refused to obey Antiochus’s laws.

It was this desperate situation that emboldened Maccabee family to fight a guerilla war, defeating the Greek-Syrian troops and winning back the Temple.  This is the victory that lies at the heart of the history of Chanukkah, but few realise that the zealotry of the victors became self-defeating. The Hasmoneans, celebrated for their courage and the liberation of their people, quickly became fanatical oppressors of their people. Their sovereignty lasted less than a hundred years and their renown faded with time and passed into obscurity.

Hence the question Mai Chanukkah – ‘What is Chanukkah?’  Perhaps there was a trace of remembrance that the Hasmoneans had not entirely been a good thing for the Jewish people, but the Rabbis were not quite ready to lose the festival completely.

How the legend of the discovery of a vial of oil, enough for one day, but lasting for eight arose, is shrouded in mystery but there is no doubt that it was this story that all but eclipsed the moral ambiguity of the victory of war, military strength and the groups of Jews who allied themselves with the Hellenization of Jewish culture.

We don’t seem to learn from history, but I think we can learn something from the beauty of lighting the chanukkiyah on each of the eight nights of Chanukkah. The Rabbis taught that we increase the light, lighting an additional candle each night because ma’alin ba-kodesh v’eyn moridin – ‘we increase in matters of holiness and do not reduce.’

Beit Hillel’s dictum teaches us the small steps we need to take to create light in the world. To increase the light, increases the beauty, the wonder of all that is good in the world. As I light the candles this year, enjoying the light with family and congregants, I will be dedicating each candle to the memory of those very special individuals in our community who have died over the past twelve months. Special, because they increased the light of the LJS through their willingness to give so much of themselves, to build something worthwhile, to take on roles of leadership, who excelled in kindness, warmth and hospitality to the stranger, who fought for justice and increased learning – their own and the education of others. And so much more. They are all deeply missed. Their light illumined the world.

Shabbat Shalom and Chanukkah Sameach,
Alexandra Wright

Wed, 19 March 2025 19 Adar 5785